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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Public schools are getting a smaller share of the income-tax revenue once earmarked exclusively for them.
Last year, they received 86 percent of the money set aside for them and colleges. This year, the Legislature gave them 77.5 percent of those income tax monies, according to a legislative fiscal analyst's comparison.
The rest is going to colleges and buildings.
"We are on a slippery slope," said Rep. Lou Shurtliff, D-Ogden, who requested the fiscal analyst's comparison and last winter unsuccessfully attempted to guarantee public schools 90 percent of the income tax revenues.
However, other legislators say people knew that would happen when they amended the Utah Constitution in 1996 to let colleges share the public schools' pot.
Money has always been a sore spot for Utah public schools, which receive fewer dollars per student than any other state in the country.
They used to have sole claim on Utah's income tax revenues. Other sources of revenue took care of everything else, including colleges. But in 1996, voters approved a constitutional amendment to allow income tax revenues to be shared with colleges and universities.
Of this year's $1 billion in surplus income and sales tax revenue, lawmakers gave roads 25.4 percent of the cache, according to analysis by Patrick Ogden, associate state schools superintendent.
Public schools got 23.1 percent, and colleges received 9.4 percent. After that, general government got 9.2 percent, Health and Human Services 9 percent, buildings 8.4 percent, a future tax cut 6.3 percent and an enacted tax cut, 5.2 percent. Law enforcement got 4 percent of the new money.
A report issued earlier this month by the Utah Foundation research organization said the once-high effort to fund public schools in a state with proportionately more children than any other has diminished due to tax and budget changes reducing revenue growth.
Colleges and universities' new operating budget is $722 million. Two-thirds of it is coming out of the income tax, Utah System of Higher Education data show. A year ago, just 30 percent of colleges' budget came from the income tax.
Rep. Ron Bigelow, R-West Valley and budget co-chairman, said the real issue is whether schools and every other state agency receive the money they need.
"I and other legislators say, yes, we should be (spending more on schools)," Bigelow said. "But we will never fund education to the national average. The funds are just not there."
However, state Office of Education figures indicate Utah used to be closer to the national school spending average. In 2000, Utah's per-student spending was 63 percent of the national average. In 2004, it had dropped to 60 percent.
Corporate and personal income tax revenues benefiting education grew more than any other tax source. And if growth keeps up, Bigelow expects that within two years, higher education will be fully funded by income tax revenues, freeing up more general funds for other state needs.
Not doing so would underfund the rest of government, or require tax rate adjustments, Bigelow said. The idea is "matching revenues to needs in government not from where the money comes from, but what the needs are."
The Utah System of Higher Education offers a similar take.
"We feel like we're partners with public education," said Amanda Covington, communications director of the Utah System of Higher Education.
"I don't view that we are to be pitted against one another, and we're not in that discussion of where that money should come from," she said. "Our main objective for higher education is to ensure that we have a fair and reasonable share of state dollars ... to offset tuition increases."
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Patti Harrington said revenue that supports higher education and public education should increase.
"The potential for tax cuts to make public education revenue stagnant is not a happy scenario," she said.
Pat Rusk, president of the 18,000-member Utah Education Association, said the funding trend is "starving our public school system."
"And I do believe we have legislators who would be happy to not have a public education system at all, who really do believe we would be better off if our public schools were privatized," Rusk said. "So if you want public schools to not perform well ... then continue the kind of trend that you see."
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
